The fire in the forge that so often made the smithy an unpopular place made it a daily stop on many people's rounds as winter set in. As snow piled around the doors and logs burned constantly on stoves, it was not unusual for as many men to stop by the smithy for a word as stopped by the tavern for a pint. And they didn't have to explain their visit to the smithy to their wives with nearly so much trepidation. A naturally gregarious person, Finneas Franklyn enjoyed the company and so did Garison. The work load was often lighter in the winter as the inclement weather meant many people did without all but the most necessary travel and, thus, needed fewer horseshoes. Such things as plows and other farm implements were often turned in for repair soon after the fall season, but once that workload was completed the work of a smith slacked off considerably. They could generally find work, but it was never of a pressing nature and, some days, it was hard to be motivated.
Garison and Finneas were standing around, trying to make their light workload last at least until noon when a knock came at the door. While few of the visitors waited for a response, most knocked as a sort of courtesy. Usually, they were well inside and closing the door behind them to block off the wind before Finneas had a chance to say, "Come in."
Both smithies looked up to see Sharif Purdy, wearing his trademark slouched hat and a long woolen coat, shoving the door closed against a cold northern wind. "Getting worse out there," he remarked, not often wasting time on pleasantries as he was in the smithy at least once a day. He justified his stops on the basis that it was part of his duty as sharif to make a show of support and security to local businesses (which it was), but the reality was that he stopped at all places that he knew would afford him a chance to warm up from his cold rounds or something to eat. In the summer, his infrequent visits to the smithy were excused by saying that no one in their right minds would cause grief at a place inhabited by two such big men as Garison and Finneas. Everyone knew the reason he didn't stop in in the summer was that it was just too hot—and never had food.
"Has it started snowing ag'in?" Finneas asked.
Purdy beat some moisture off his hat, explaining the article's condition quite graphically, and laughed, "I can't tell. I can't tell whether it's actually snowing, or if the wind is just blowing the snow off of roofs and trees. And to tell you the truth, it's so miserable out there that I don't care one way or another."
"We had a fellow back home once who used to say we didn't get much snow, but we got a lot of use out of the snow we had," Garison chuckled.
Finneas, who was forever trying to find out about Garison's past, asked casually, "Does it snow like this in your La Plata Canyon?"
"Sometimes," Garison replied. "But usually it's a little worse. Comes in big storms, then stays a long time. Can be pretty nice in between, though. Can also be pretty miserable." He shrugged, "Like everywhere else: you get different weathers different years."
Purdy and Finneas shared a shrug for they had given up trying to tell when Garison was telling the truth about his past or just yarning. The closest they had gotten to where he came from was vague hints that it was far to the west, but these thoughts they doubted as Garison was obviously not an Indian and didn't speak with a Spanish accent. In fact, he seemed to not know Spanish at all, from what they could tell. Still, "La Plata" sounded Spanish, they thought.
Purdy walked over to Garison and said, "I understand congratulations are in order. I hear you passed the bar."
Garison shook the proffered hand and said, "Thanks. It was a little harder than I expected, but it went well." As Purdy started to lean back for comfort, Garison quickly said, "I wouldn't lean on that anvil if I were you. Unless you want to catch it from your daughter when she tries to wash the black and soot out of your britches."
"Thank you," Purdy said as he picked a post to lean against instead. "So," with a wink toward Finneas, Purdy asked, "Does this mean we're losing a smith, gaining a barrister, or neither?"
"I don't know, really," Garison told him honestly. "To get steady work as a barrister I'd probably have to move to Alexandria or Richmond and I really don't want to leave Mount Vernon. On the other hand, I've never been sure that I would want to be a full-time lawyer, anyway. Kind of studied it by accident."
Finneas shrugged and said, "Sharif, can ye imagine a man what turns down a life in the courts when so many of us can barely make a living?"
Purdy chuckled, "Maybe he just remembers his Shakespeare. 'The first thing we do is kill all lawyers.'"
Garison nodded, "I have often thought that all lawyers ought to have that inscribed on their doorposts so that it was the last thing they saw each morning before going to work. Maybe it would keep us a little more..."
"Honest?" both men asked in unison, then laughed at the timing.
Blushing, Garison said, "I was trying to think of another word but, yes."
Purdy pulled out a watch he carried, one of the few in town, and wound it. Looking at it, he said, "I suppose I should be back on my rounds. The widow Bradley puts up coffee about this time and frets something terrible if she has to drink it alone."
"I bet she does," Garison laughed.
Purdy touched the tip of his cap and wished quite formally, "A happy December 13th to you."
"And to you," Finneas returned with a mocking bow.
Garison looked up and asked quickly, "What day did you say it was?"
"December thirteenth," Purdy replied. "Is it a special day to you?"
"No, but I just realized that tomorrow is my birthday."
"Ho-ho," Finneas cheered, "Congratulations. And how old will ye be, lad?"
Garison knew instantly that it was a bit of a trick question. He wouldn't be born for another two hundred and thirty-six years. On the other hand, his body had still aged a specific amount of time, so he replied, "Thirty. Tomorrow I turn the big three-oh."
"Get out!" Finneas demanded. His sentiment of disbelief was agreed upon if not articulated by Purdy.
"What?" Garison asked.
"Ye can't be thirty!" Finneas objected. "I am but thirty-six m'self and I have always been certain I was ten to a dozen years ahead of ye."
Garison, too, was surprised at the revelation, having guessed Finneas to be well into his forties. Perhaps the hard life in the past—or, at least, the manual labor of the past—aged people at a rate different from that of the twenty-first century. Garison also wondered how much the sanitation had to do with it, as well. And the diet. Garison finally assured them both, "I'm really going to be thirty."
Purdy looked Garison over, shook his head, and said, "I can hardly believe it!" before walking out the door into the snow.
Finneas chuckled, "Wherever this La Plata Canyon ye come from is, it must be a ver' healthy place."
After the sharif was gone, Franklyn turned to Garison and said, "I have been meaning to talk with ye, me boy." With a smile, he realized he probably shouldn't refer to Garison as a lad anymore, considering the proximity of their ages. "Serious talk, that is."
"You're the boss," Fitch smiled. "What's on your mind?"
"Two things," Finneas told him. "The first is this: Ye have worked here for near nine months. And a good nine months of work it has been. In fact, there's not quite enough smithing work at this shop to keep both of us busy. Ye know that as well as I. Much of that is owed to improvements ye have made and suggested. Now, I have listened to ye talk, and it has come to me for a long time that ye may not be who you say ye are."
"What do you mean?" Fitch asked, trying not to sound guilty. He was suddenly on edge, though. He had always known that such a conversation would eventually come and had known just as certainly that he wouldn't know how to handle it.
"I mean, ye're not from the west, are ye? This La Plata Canyon ye speak of; I have traveled the west as a younger man and there is no such place. Not in the colonies, anyway. La Plata—'tis a Spanish name, is it not? Are you from the Spanish lands?"
"Well—"
"If ye're running from something, that be all
right. Ye have proven ye'rself to me and I'll let ye work here as long as ye're of a mind. Still, I feel ye would be selling ye'rself short to not seek a bit of the horizon. Not by leavin', I mean, but by...stretchin' y'rself. Ye'r mind. But ye'd best watch what ye say, me lad. Someone from where ye're running from might hear that ye're in Mount Vernon."
Garison laughed and told him, "I really doubt that will happen. I'm pretty sure no one from where I'm from is—around anymore." Even as he was thinking that the tense was all wrong, he said, "They're all gone, now. But thank you for the warning. Even if no one ever comes after me, it's still probably a good idea for me to watch my tongue. People being the way they are, and all. What was the other thing you wished to tell me?"
"Well, first, some things ye have said seem odd. They make no difference to me, but ye are right and had best watch what ye say. 'Ye'r tongue', as you put it. There are those—especially among the Puritans, but also among your Baptists—who listen to every word, hopin' to catch people in sin. If they was to hear some of the things ye have been sayin', they might accuse ye of being a witch. And I am sure ye have heard what becomes of witches here abouts."
"I have no desire to become a Texas bar-b-que," Fitch smiled.
"Ye might be careful about phrases like that."
"Sorry."
Franklyn shrugged and said, "The other thing: 'tis about the lass. Ye have been seeing Sarah for nine months, now. Oh, I know it's only been a couple months since you made your intentions public, but everyone in town has known since that first day that ye have had ye'r eye on her and her cap has been set for you as long. Now, I don't know how things are where ye come from; but here, that is plenty long. I don't like to pry into yer affairs, but ye need to take a step, Fitch."
"How do you mean?" Garison asked, though suddenly nervous at what Finneas's reply might be.
"Declare your intentions. Officially, I mean. 'Tis not respectable for a young lady to be seein' a man for as long as Sarah's been seeing ye without ye asking her to marry ye or setting up a state of promise or betrothal. Ye bein' the proper gentleman that ye are, I know ye don't want to see anything else happen to poor Sarah's name. The Good Lord knows she has been unjustly accused a-plenty. But marrying ye would be just the thing to make the people forget what they—we—used to call her. And it is high time we did."
"Time to 'fish or cut bait', eh?"
"If that means marrying her, yes."
"Marry her?" Garison asked in astonishment. It was not that the idea was foreign (or even distasteful) to him, he had just never heard it spoken aloud and it took him off guard. Truth be known, the word had crossed his thoughts a time or two (or million) in the previous months.
"Ye're in love with her, aren't ye, me lad?"
"Well...I never gave it much thought. Out loud, I mean. But, I believe I am. I mean, I've never told her—or even admitted it to myself, but ..." As he said it, he knew it was true. He was shocked—not at loving Sarah—but at being able to admit it to himself even in a round-about fashion. A year before, he had almost given up hope on finding a woman he could truly love. The thought flitted through his mind to be glad he hadn't “settled” for someone in the twenty-first century.
"Then what do ye wait for?" the Irishman asked with a big smile. "She is the prettiest lass in three counties and she loves that boy Garison Fitch."
Garison blushed and asked, "Why do you say that?" After all, she had never come right out and said anything, either, had she?
"'Tis obvious to every man with eyes," Finneas said with a flare. "She is like a flower in bloom when she even speaks of ye. Her eyes shine like the sun when ye are around. Were I you, Garison Fitch, I would pick that flower at me first chance. Though, I must admit, I can't see that you would ever have competition for her affections. She's decided on you and that's for certain."
Garison sat, still dumbfounded, and asked, "Marriage? I just haven't given it much thought. But, I don't know why not. She is the loveliest girl around, isn't she?"
"That she is, apart from me own Galena, of course," Franklyn smiled. "Wee bit thin for my tastes, but she is a lovely girl. And you'll find no more God-fearing of a woman anywhere. She was raised well by a wonderful woman. The wife and I, we used to have Sarah and her aunt, as we called her, over on occasion. I would have liked to have kept up the practice, but when her aunt died my wife started worrying about what people might think. Single woman, with her name and all. I think Galena misses it now, though, an' I wish I had put my foot down, as ye say. Like Sarah, she likes to think—and talk about the things she's thought of. She misses that. But I weren’t no better than the rest."
"So why not start getting back together with Sarah? From what she's said, I know Sarah misses Galena."
"Pride, I reckon." With a wink, Finneas added, "But, if ye and Sarah was to marry, then we could have ye both over and it would be all respectable again. One married couple with another."
Garison sunk into his seat and smiled as the thoughts of marrying Sarah fled through his mind. He was seeing visions of their home together, their children, and all the other things a young man dreams of having in a marriage. He saw himself coming home to her each night after work . . .
"You have convinced me," Garison told Finneas suddenly, realizing somewhere in the back of his mind the incredible leap he had just made. It seemed even larger than realizing he had jumped through time. "Now, if I ask her and she says yes, will you stand up with me at my wedding?"
"It would be an honor," Finneas replied, his turn to blush. "Me boy, I don't think there's a chance in this world that she will turn ye down. I'll lay you odds that she jumps right into your arms when ye ask!"
Garison jumped to his feet and pulled off the apron, hanging it on its peg. So anxious was he that he left without a coat even though the day was quite cold. He didn’t notice.
At the tavern, he found Sarah serving a few customers who had come in out of the cold for a warm draught of something. She looked up and ask with a laugh, “Where’s your coat, Garison? You’ll catch your death.”
He noticed his lack of outerwear for the first time then and shrugged, asking before he could lose his nerve, “Could I talk to you for a moment?”
“Um, certainly,” she replied, turning toward the kitchen and saying to Mike, who had looked up when the door opened, “I’ll just be a minute, if that’s all right.” At Mike’s nod, she grabbed her coat and put it on, then followed Garison outside. “Aren’t you freezing?”
Garison knew if he answered he would get sidetracked from his purpose in coming, so he took her hands in his own, took a breath, then blurted out, “Sarah, will you marry me?”
Sarah was so thunderstruck by both the suddenness and the import of the question that she did nothing at first. Just stood there looking up at him with her green eyes as large as quarters. When he was about to ask if she had heard him, she let go of his hands and threw her arms around his neck, saying, “Yes! Yes, Garison, I will! I will be yours forever.”
As Garison kissed her, a cheer came up from the door of the tavern and the young couple turned to find that the patrons and Mike were all standing there, grinning from ear to ear. As Garison blushed, Sarah smiled even wider and whispered to him excitedly, “I finally get to have a last name!”
Excerpt from A Fitch Family History by Maureen Fitch Carnes
"The great plains were a wonder to us all. I was reminded of the time I had gone out to sea; for, as far as we could look in any direction there was nothing but flat land covered by waist high grass which bent sometimes before a wind we could not even feel. In the distance, we would see the grass rippling like waves on a seashore but would feel no breeze on us. Or a wind would beat our faces with such fury we had to seek shelter, and in the distance we could see places of calm. Overhead, the clouds would be moving in such a way that matched none of the breezes we saw or felt. Or standing still like a painting.
"When rains came they often came with amazing suddenness. More than once I felt like
Elijah watching the cloud form over the sea for we would go from a blue sky to a torrential downpour in what seemed like moments. The rain would disappear just as quickly, leaving behind a humid and muddy land which could be dried by the sun in seemingly no time at all. Sometimes, it seemed like one could spit and watch the expectorant dry before ever hitting the ground.
"...We saw out on the plains herds of buffalo that staggered the imagination. Even as I write this, two decades later, I can scarcely believe my own memory. We arrived at a bluff one day to look down on a herd of moving buffalo that reminded us of our first glimpse of the Mississippi. They cut a slow-moving swath a mile wide if it was a foot and it took them a full three days to pass and for those three days all our senses, but especially that of smell, were overloaded. In their path, they left what looked like a dry river bed, churned to dust and amazingly devastated. Somehow, the grass grew back for I returned to that spot once years later to find no more evidence of the buffalo than a few hardened droppings and a small herd in the distance. They tell me the great herds are still out there, but they are ever-moving. I would like to see such a herd again."
Chapter Eleven
December 29, 1739
I never realized that more preparations went into a wedding than had gone into traveling through time. And suddenly, all these ladies who had shunned Sarah all her life were falling over themselves to help. One woman is making a veil, three others are making the dress, a gaggle of others are trying to solve the dilemma of what to do for flowers since it is winter time. In short, it is a circus without a ringmaster (and, maybe, in need of someone with a hardy bullwhip or a megaphone). The only people in town who don't seem excited about the wedding are the Monroes. They, in fact, seem a little resentful of all the attention their previously-ignored cousin is now receiving. If Sarah ever thinks about the Monroes, though, she never says anything. It's my feeling that she is above such pettiness. If she's not, no one will ever know.
The Legend of Garison Fitch (Book 1): First Time Page 11